384 W. Thalbitzer 



landers, whereas the kaiak of the Upernawik, Umanak and Disko- 

 bugt Eskimo has both the stern and stem curved upwards; in the 

 southern parts of North Greenland, we find kaiaks with bent-up stern 

 but straight stem projections. 



In earlier times the East Greenlanders at Ammassalik have only 

 had kaiaks with the stem and stern sloping upwards. According to 

 Johan Petersen's account the old type of kaiak was still in full use 

 at Ammassalik in 1884 on the arrival of Holm's expedition. But 

 even then, some few kaiaks of the newer construction, which had 

 come from the south, were already noticed. On the next visit of 

 Europeans (the founding of the Danish colony in 1894) there was 

 not a single kaiak of the old type to be seen, all the kaiaks had 

 straight ends; the South-west Greenland mode had conquered. For 

 the sake of the ethnographic collection it was necessary to order 

 specially examples of the old type. 



Old hunters (Akernilik, Ukuttiaq, Ajukutooq, Attiartertoq), with 

 whom I spoke in 1906, confirmed this fact. The ends were originally 

 bent up [napoijalin), not straight. Nappartuko made a model for me 

 from a piece of wood (fig. 90). The stern, he said, was a little more 

 bent up than the stem and the part round the man-hole reached 

 somewhat higher up than in the present kaiaks. 



They maintained also, that the original kaiaks resembled the 

 women's boats, not having the curved ribs or bottom frames (tippiän) 

 all in one piece like those on which the kaiak skins are now hung; 

 the bottom was built of straight cross-pieces {nammin), placed at a 

 certain distance from each other, each between two vertical frames, 

 and the different parts were held together by thin straps and not 

 by means of nailing or fitting together. Or as they expressed it: 

 "Originally our forefathers did not have kaiaks, but only umiaks". 

 Mitsuarnianga informed me, that nammin and nappalertaait (side 

 frames) in their forefathers' kaiaks were like those of the umiak, 

 but that the ends of the boat did not resemble the umiak. Attiarter- 

 toq said, that he had once made a model of an old time kaiak 

 ^\ithout iippiän for his son. Further, Akernilik explained, that in 

 his youth he himself had seen a kaiak belonging to Awkuluk's 

 younger brother, which had the stem and stern of bone, both slop- 

 ing upwards and forked (thus somewhat similar to the umiak). — 

 Apart from the latter exaggeration, I am unable to disregard these 

 statements, as they were confirmed by several old men and they 

 agree, further, with the reports on the Eskimo kaiaks more to the 

 west. Thus, Turner states regarding the eastern Hudson Bay Eskimo, 

 that "the bottom of their kaiak is quite flat and the frame for the 



